


sweeter than sugar

by GallifreyanFairytale



Series: lead me to the garden (winter atla femslash week 2021 fics) [4]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: ATLA Winter Femslash Week 2021, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Asexual Yue (Avatar), Bisexual Suki (Avatar), Childhood Friends, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, I'll probably add more tags later, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Jealousy, Minor Character Death, Mutual Pining, Yue (Avatar)-centric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-16 00:35:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29198490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GallifreyanFairytale/pseuds/GallifreyanFairytale
Summary: this kindergarten crush has got my stomach all twistedsweeter than sugar, lover i'm addictedor, suki & yue through the years
Relationships: Suki/Yue (Avatar)
Series: lead me to the garden (winter atla femslash week 2021 fics) [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2137752
Comments: 8
Kudos: 17
Collections: Winter ATLA Femslash Week 2021





	sweeter than sugar

**Author's Note:**

> for day four of winter atla femslash week: childhood friends
> 
> okay so this was _supposed_ to be a oneshot. then i realized that the way i was writing was going to put it at 20-25k words and i already have two 20k+ word oneshots that accidentally got that long, so this time, i preemptively decided to split this into three parts (elementary school, middle school, and high school/college)
> 
> that being said, i doubt i'll have all three chapters up before femslash week ends, but they _are_ coming, don't worry
> 
> inspired by the song kindergarten by chloe moriondo (that is where the fic & chapter titles come from as well)

_kindergarten_

The world is big, and Yue doesn’t know what to make of it. She wishes she were still back home with Sokka and Katara instead of in a new world where the sun sets in the summertime and she sees unfamiliar faces every day. All of the kids in her class already know each other and Yue’s teacher doesn’t even know how to say her name.

When her dad had been offered a job in the United States, Yue never thought he would actually take it. Kugaaruk was _is_ their home, not this town that Yue can’t recall the name of, not this school with too many people who are all looking at Yue like they’re the hunters and she is the prey.

Yue’s mom didn’t think he would take it, either. When she realized he was serious was when the fighting began.

(Or maybe the fighting had started long before that, and the job offer had been what finally tipped them over. Because Yue’s dad wanted to take it and Yue’s mom said she would never leave her home.)

So now Yue is here, in a different country, over 3,000 kilometers from home. Because her dad said something about how this school will open more opportunities for Yue’s future, and that means she only gets to go back home in the summers. Yue didn’t _want_ to live with her dad, not really. She _wanted_ to stay in Kugaaruk - with _both_ of her parents. She wanted to go to school with Sokka and the other kids she’s known basically since she was born.

But that’s not how life worked out.

Yue’s teacher sits her down next to a girl with long, straight, hair that shines almost red under the classroom lights. The girl smiles brightly and waves as the teacher calls her _Suki_.

Suki invites Yue to eat lunch with her, and Yue follows Suki through the lunch line like a lost puppy even though she has her packed lunch box clutched tightly in her hands. She follows Suki until she sits down at one of the long, wooden, lunch tables, then takes a hesitant seat next to her. The other girl sitting there, across from Suki, has brown hair in a long braid running down her back, and she’s dressed entirely in pink. 

“This is Ty Lee,” Suki says. “She lives next door to me. Ty Lee, this is Yue. She’s new.”

Ty Lee beams, and her smile is bright like the sun. 

Ty Lee, Yue learns, has a lot to say. She’s a little bit like bubbles and sunshine and she’s very, very, excited about everything. Yue doesn’t really know what she’s talking about, but she’s enchanted by it all the same. She’s talking about her sisters and something they like to do after school - something Yue’s never heard of before.

Yue’s eyes drift over to Suki’s lunch tray, and they get caught on the cookies sitting in the top right. Yue’s mom didn’t like letting her eat sugary foods, but Yue recognizes them as Oreos anyways. One time, when she was over at Sokka and Katara’s house, they got in a fight over what the best way to eat an Oreo was. Katara said you needed to dip them in milk. Sokka said you twist them apart so you can lick the frosting off, and _then_ you eat the cookie part - but not dipped in milk, because that makes the cookies soggy.

They’d made Yue judge which way was best, but she thought they were both good.

Suki is twisting her cookies apart, but she isn’t licking the frosting off. She’s eating the cookie half without frosting first, and then eating the half with frosting. 

Suki must sense Yue watching her, because she picks up the last Oreo from her tray and holds it out towards Yue. “Here!” she says brightly.

Yue takes the cookie and quietly thanks Suki. She twists the two halves apart and eats it just like she’d seen Suki do. The cookie is sweet, but the smile Suki gives her is far sweeter.

And as simple as that, Yue and Suki and Ty Lee are friends. There is no conversation, no asking if they want friendship, it just _is_. Like the sky being blue and the grass being green, their friendship becomes a known fact of the universe.

  
  


_first grade_

Suki’s mom is a second grade teacher, so the day of the annual Fun Fair, Yue and Ty Lee stay at school with Suki after the last bell rings. She leads them to her mom’s classroom, where the desks have already been pushed to one side to make way for the fun fair game that will be located in Ms. Yun’s classroom.

Yue hasn’t ever been to a school fun fair before. Which, considering she’s only in first grade, makes sense. Suki says she’s been going to them since she was a baby and Ty Lee went to last year’s with Suki. But last year on Fun Fair Day, Yue had ice skating lessons, so she hadn’t been able to go.

This year, though, she’s ready to play _all_ the games.

The one they help Mrs. Yun set up is supposed to be the hardest game at the fun fair, according to Suki and Ty Lee. There’s a huge piece of wood in the shape of a square that is placed on the floor. All of the sides are longer than Yue is tall. Halfway between the edges and the middle are a collection of glass Coca Cola bottles, all laying on their side, placed on top of X’s made out of tape.

The goal of the game, as Suki had described, is to get the bottle into a standing position. You use something a little bit like a fishing rod, except they’re made out of meter sticks and string, and they have a plastic ring instead of a fishhook. You aren’t allowed to step on the wood, either. 

Because the game is so difficult, it has the biggest prizes of all the games. If you get the bottle to stand up, you get to pick out a hat. Some of the older kids whose parents are also teachers bring in a tub full of hats in bright colors - plastic cowboy hats and firefighter hats, visors made out of thick foam, hats Yue can’t name the style of in felt and fabric that looks scratchy. 

Suki says some of those hats have been offered as prizes for this game since before she was born, that because the game is _so hard_ , they can just keep reusing the prize bin year after year and they usually don’t have to order more hats. Suki also insists that this year will be the year she finally wins the game.

Ty Lee says that last year, they sat and watched _at least_ twenty adults try the game and fail, so she isn’t too sure Suki will have much luck. 

Yue, Suki, and Ty Lee arrange the prizes on the desks, organizing the hats by style and color. Once Ms. Yun’s room has been set up for the fun fair, Suki drags Yue and Ty Lee around the rest of the school, pointing out which classroom will hold which games and asking a few of the other teachers if they need any help setting up until they end up back where they began.

Once the first shift of parent volunteers for the bottle stand up game show up, they leave Ms. Yun’s classroom again, this time in search of other games to play. Ms. Yun follows them as “adult supervision” (a term Yue just recently learned), but they’re allowed to choose where they want to go.

Ty Lee suggests they do the cake walk first, and Suki excitedly agrees.

“What’s a cake walk?” Yue questions. She knows what both of those words mean individually, of course, but she’s not sure what sort of game they might create when they’re pushed together. The bottle stand up game was a pretty straight forward name - you have to stand a bottle up. But a cake walk? You… walk to cake? How is that a game? Are there obstacles in the way, or is it timed - like a race? But then wouldn’t it be called cake _run_ instead?

“It’s really easy,” Suki assures her.

Ty Lee nods in agreement. “It’s all about luck.”

“Exactly!” Suki frowns. “I’m not very lucky, though. I’ve never won once in all the years I’ve played.” She shakes her head, clearing the upsetting thought away. “Basically, there are slips of paper on the floor in a circle and they all have numbers on them. You pick one to stand on at the beginning, and then when the music starts playing, you start walking around the circle. When the music stops, you stop walking and look down at what number you’re standing on. Then, the person running the game will draw a number. If it’s your number, you win! And you get to pick out a cake or cupcakes or cookies or whatever. There’s a lot of different options because a lot of parents make stuff or buy stuff to donate for the game.”

Yue nods. That does sound easy enough. Stand on the paper, walk while the music is playing, stop when the music stops, and wait for a number to be called out. She can do that.

She, Suki, and Ty Lee hand their tickets to the person at the door who is holding a bright orange bucket, and then they stand on three consecutive numbers. Yue is on _8_ , Suki is on _9_ , and Ty Lee is on _10_. Once most of the papers have people standing on them, the game starts. The young woman at the radio presses a button, music fills the classroom, and everyone begins to walk.

Yue watches her feet, making sure she steps exactly on each piece of paper, following behind Suki, until the music stops playing. She lands on the number _2_.

The young woman standing by the radio picks up a small white container, shuffles around the pieces of paper inside, and then pulls one out. She unfolds it and reads out, “Number fourteen!”

A girl who is a couple years older than Yue, and who has a dark blue cast on one of her arms, shouts, “That’s me! That’s my number!” She gets to go to the table in the middle of the circle and pick a prize. She meanders for a bit before selecting a plate of chocolate chip cookies that’s sealed up in a Ziploc bag.

They do the cake walk a few more times with no luck, and then they move onto other games. They circle around the school, playing Plinko, Duck Pond, Ring Toss, Mystery Fishing, Pick a Pencil, Bottle Toss, and more. They collect prizes as they go - pieces of candy and little knick knacks that have no real use but are exciting all the same. They get their faces painted too, which Yue thinks might be her favorite part of the funfair.

Ty Lee gets a rainbow painted on her cheek, and Suki gets a sword on hers. Yue looks over the paper showcasing potential ideas for a while before quietly asking the woman if she can get the moon painted on her cheek. The woman paints a crescent moon in white, and then adds stars around in yellow, and holds up a mirror for Yue to see.

She grins. It reminds her of home, a little bit, when the stars are visible all day in the heart of the winter. The stars are what she misses most about living up north. There’s too much light here to see them very well, but back home, the night sky glistens and gleams and Yue knows there is nothing that is quite comparable to that view.

After face painting, they play more games. They make their way to the gym, which is half taken up by a big inflatable slide. It reaches up towards the ceiling and Yue’s eyes grow wide when she sees it. It’s blue and red and yellow and white and kids of all different ages are throwing themselves down it, screaming with glee as they speed down the slide and tumble to the bottom. Yue isn’t really sure that’s something she’s interested in, despite how popular it seems to be.

The other half of the gym has various smaller games, which is where Yue, Suki, and Ty Lee spend their time. Yue catches Ty Lee gazing longingly at the slide, and apparently Suki does too, because she says that they can come back after the fun fair is over and go down the slide, that way they don’t have to use any tickets for it _and_ there won’t be so many people.

Selfishly, Yue hopes that won’t actually happen. She feels bad for thinking that, but the guilt doesn’t stop her from wishing.

Eventually, they end up back at the cake walk with enough tickets left to play one more round. The fun fair is nearly over, anyways, so the three of them drop their last tickets into the bucket and find an empty piece of paper to stand on. 

There aren’t very many other people playing this round, so Suki suggests they spread out so they have a better chance of winning. She plants herself on _4_. Ty Lee stands on _9_ and Yue walks over to _16_. The music starts, and they walk around the circle. As she walks, Yue studies the way her boots land on the laminated pieces of paper - how they sort of crunch them, but not really, because the lamination helps protect the paper from creases.

The music stops, and a number is called.

“Fifteen!”

The few of them playing the game look around, until eventually, everyone is staring at the number fifteen paper that has no one standing on it. That number is exchanged for another.

“Twelve!”

Once again, no one.

“Six?”

Yue blinks. She looks down beneath her feet like she didn’t memorize what number was there as soon as the music stopped. The number six is staring back up at her, but Yue’s brain is trying to convince itself she’s wrong and she’s actually standing on a nine for some reason.

She looks to her left and right. Five and Seven. She has to be on number six.

“That’s Yue’s number!” Suki announces. “Yue, you won!” Suki bounds over to Yue and drags her to the table in the center. The collection of treats has dwindled down to what Yue assumes are mostly the ones that have been rejected over the course of the night.

She feels Ty Lee bounce up next to her. “What’re you gonna pick?!”

“I don’t know.” Yue looks over all of the options. She really doesn’t recognize what most of them are besides a basic category. Finally, she picks up something that was clearly store bought and is labelled _Apple Turnovers_. Yue knows she likes apples.

With her prize clutched tightly in her hands, she follows Suki and Ty Lee to where Ms. Yun is waiting for them.

They all walk back to Ms. Yun’s classroom together and the girls sit at the back table, watching the last few rounds of people attempt to get the glass bottles to stand up until Ms. Yun offers to cut up one of the apple turnovers so they can all try it. She asks Yue, really, since it’s her prize. But Yue doesn’t have anyone else to share them with, so she doesn’t mind Suki and Ty Lee eating them with her now.

Ms. Yun cuts one of the apple turnovers into three equal pieces and sets each one on a paper towel. Yue bits into it hesitantly, not quite sure what to expect. It will be sweet - she’s sure of that much. But she isn’t sure what _type_ of sweet it will be.

She chews slowly, making sure she savors the flavor so she can form an accurate opinion on it.

The inside is gooey and cinnamon-y, but it isn’t _bad_ . It’s… _different_. That’s the best word Yue knows to describe it.

They all eat their piece of the apple turnover, and as Suki promised, Ms. Yun takes them to the gym after the fun fair has officially ended. The games in the gym have mostly been cleaned up by the time they get there, but the slide is still standing tall. Ty Lee and Suki immediately start taking their shoes off, but Yue just stands and stares up at the slide.

A firm hand plants itself on Yue’s shoulder. “You don’t have to go down the slide if you don’t want,” Ms. Yun tells her. Something in her voice relaxes Yue.

“I don’t want to,” she responds quietly.

Yue sits cross-legged on the floor and watches Suki and Ty Lee go down the slide while Ms. Yun talks to one of the other teachers who was helping clean up the games. Eventually, Suki gets tired of the slide and she pads over to where Yue is sitting before plopping down next to her.

“Why didn’t you go down the slide?” she asks. 

Yue can tell she isn’t being mean about it, but she still doesn’t really want to admit to being scared. So she just says, “I don’t really want to.”

Suki furrows her eyebrows momentarily before she shrugs and smiles. “Okay!” She throws an arm around Yue’s shoulders. “Maybe next year, then. But only if you want to.”

Yue doesn’t think she will want to, but she nods and says, “Maybe next year,” anyways. 

She tries not to lean too far into Suki’s touch, some deep sense of _knowing_ telling her that she can’t come across as too clingy or Suki won’t want to be her friend anymore. But she can’t bring herself to push Suki’s arm off of her. She _does_ like the feeling of it sitting there, making Yue feel a little less alone in a world that’s so, impossibly, big.

  
  


_second grade_

The first time Yue has a sleepover with someone besides Sokka and Katara is when she’s eight years old and Suki spends the night at her house. The first time Suki rides the bus for any reason other than a field trip is when she’s seven years old and rides home with Yue for a sleepover.

The thing about teacher’s kids, according to Suki, is that your parents will take you to school with them early and they will take you home from school late, which means Suki gets to school about an hour and a half before the school day starts and leaves about an hour after the school day ends. It also means the first time she ever rode the bus was for a field trip, and she can count exactly how many times she’s ridden the bus before - two field trips in kindergarten, two field trips in first grade, one field trip earlier this school year, and right now, with Yue.

Ty Lee was invited to join them too, but two of her sisters have a ballet performance tonight so her parents said she couldn’t come to the sleepover. They’d offered to reschedule for her, but Ty Lee said it was fine and the three of them could all have a sleepover together some other time.

So Suki brought her overnight bag to school and left it in her mom’s classroom during the day, then as soon as the kids whose parents pick them up were dismissed, Suki dashed out of the room to swap her school bag for her overnight bag and then met Yue out by the busses. She followed Yue to her bus, and handed the bus driver the note that said she’s allowed to ride home with Yue and get off the bus at Yue’s stop with her, and then they found an empty seat near the middle and sat down.

The bus ride is bumpy, as bus rides usually are. Suki’s legs knock against Yue’s, but it’s sort of comforting, in a way. Suki doesn’t try to stop it either.

It takes twenty-two minutes to get to Yue’s stop, and during that time, Suki and Yue talk about what they’re going to do at their sleepover. Yue’s dad is making dinner tonight, but it won’t be until later, so they have time beforehand to play games or watch a movie. Suki says they should stay up _really_ late, and Yue nods emphatically in agreement.

Yue’s dad isn’t home from work yet when they arrive, so Yue fishes her key to the apartment out from the front pocket of her backpack, and she makes sure to lock the door behind her once she and Suki are both inside.

While they wait for Yue’s dad to get home, Yue teaches Suki a card game she used to play with Sokka and Katara. Yue doesn’t know how to translate the name of it into English, so she just gives Suki the name in Inuktitut and teaches Suki how to pronounce it correctly.

She picks it up easily, which is a nice change from every time Yue has said something in her native language and been met with blank stares or judgmental glares or being told she should be speaking English since she’s living in America. Yue thinks the last one is a little ridiculous - lots of people living in America speak languages besides English. Suki speaks Korean. Ty Lee speaks Japanese. Several of the kids in Yue’s grade speak Spanish.

Yue didn’t say that, though. She just rolled her eyes.

They talk as they play, about whatever comes to mind.

“Where do you go during the summer?” Suki finally asks. “You said you stay with your mom, but where does she live?”

Yue places a card down. “Back home in Kugaaruk,” she answers simply. Then, as an afterthought, she adds, “It’s in Canada. That’s where I lived before I came here, after my parents got divorced.”

Suki nods slowly. She looks through her hand, fingers skimming over the tops of the cards, before she decides on one to play. “What’s it like there?”

“Cold,” Yue answers instinctively, like that’s the defining factor. “Beautiful. The stars are so much brighter because there’s less light… um…” Yue scrunches her nose, searching her mind for the correct term. “Light that stays in the sky and makes the stars hard to see.”

“Light pollution?”

“Yeah, that! There’s not a lot of light pollution, because there’s not as many buildings and lights. It’s so much smaller than here.” Yue thinks of Sokka and Katara, who must still be in school right now with the time zone difference. Yue only went to school in Kugaarak for a few months, but she knows that while the school she goes to now isn’t considered _big_ , there are probably more people in her elementary school than there are in Kugaarak’s entire school system.

“Do you have friends there?”

Yue nods and she feels herself smile. “Sokka and Katara. We all sort of knew everyone, I guess, but their dad and my dad used to work together so we saw each other a lot. They say they want to come visit me someday, so maybe you’ll get to meet them!”

Suki’s face lights up. “Really?! That sounds fun! I bet we could all go to my house and we can invite Ty Lee too, and we can watch a movie and my mom could make _japchae_!” She leans forward. “What are they like? Sokka and Katara, I mean.”

“Sokka is, like, _super_ smart - he can do hard math problems in his head, and he’s the same age as we are. Katara is younger than us. She’s really nice, unless you disagree with her. But even if she fights with you, she still wants to be your friend.” Yue giggles. “She and Sokka argue a lot, but they say that’s because they’re siblings and siblings argue.”

“Ty Lee says the same thing about her sisters,” Suki muses. “I guess we’ll just have to take their word for it since neither of us have any siblings.”

“I guess so.”

After dinner and more games, Suki and Yue settle down to watch a movie. Yue doesn’t have a lot of movies, but Suki doesn’t comment on it. Her eyes land on one of the DVD cases and her entire face lights up. She pulls it off the shelf. “Can we watch _Aladdin_?! It’s my favorite!”

Yue grins. “It’s my favorite too!”

The two girls look at each other and burst into a fit of giggles. 

They watch _Aladdin_ , and Yue ends up falling asleep halfway through. When she wakes up, the tv has been turned off and her head is resting on Suki’s shoulder. In her half-asleep state, the only truly coherent thought in her mind is, _This is nice_.

  
  


_third grade_

One month into the school year, Ty Lee breaks the news that her family is moving back to Japan.

Mostly, Yue feels numb about it. Mostly, Yue tries not to think about it because so long as she doesn’t think about it, it’s like it isn’t really happening. Mostly, Yue stops wishing she could move back home full time, because she realizes maybe here is home now too. Can she have two homes? Is that possible?

Ty Lee’s last day of school in the United States is in January, two and a half weeks after Yue’s ninth birthday. It’s Friday, and there are heavy grey clouds in the sky and a heavy ache that’s situating itself on Yue’s shoulders. The sky spits out flurries of snowflakes periodically throughout the day, but none of it sticks to the ground, so everything just looks cold and dead.

It feels like fitting weather for today.

They don’t talk about the inevitable. They all sit uncomfortably in denial, not willing to bring up the looming storm cloud that is Ty Lee’s departure. They all sit with a heavy weight on their chest, unable to speak about it even to the only people who understand.

Yue tries to memorize their last lunch together - tries to capture the image in her mind so she can look back on it in all the years to come, the same way she did with the last time she ate dinner with both of her parents. Suki’s long hair falls down over her shoulders like it always does - almost perfectly straight and reaching all the way down to her waist. She’s wearing a green jacket that is zipped up so you can just see a little bit of her brown shirt sticking out at the top. Ty Lee is sporting her signature braid, the bright pink ribbon holding it together standing out vividly against the dark brown, and her long-sleeved shirt matches the ribbon almost exactly. Yue’s own hair is in two braids, and she adds what she thinks she looks like into the image of three girls sitting at their own table, trying to be happy but not really succeeding.

Suki packed her lunch today, and she brought Oreos. She silently slides one over to Ty Lee, and then passes on to Yue.

Ty Lee opens her milk carton all the way so she can dip her cookie in the milk. Suki and Yue take theirs apart and eat each half separately. It feels like a divide.

Yue doesn’t cry. Not when they’re dismissed to recess, not when the final bell rings at the end of the day, not when Ty Lee squeezes her in one last hug before they climb onto their respective busses, not when she gets home and the emptiness sinks into her bones despite the fact that she knows Ty Lee won’t actually be leaving for Japan until Sunday.

As she sits in her bed that night, hugging her stuffed polar bear close to her chest, she wonders if maybe there’s something broken inside of her because she isn’t reacting right to Ty Lee leaving. It’s not that she isn’t sad, because _of course_ she’s sad. It’s that she almost can’t seem to convince herself that Ty Lee is gone for good. She spent so long in denial that it became second nature, even when the end has come and gone. Even when she feels hollow remembering the fact that Ty Lee won’t be at school anymore, and she won’t see her for a very, very, long time - _if_ she sees her again at all.

Yue’s polar bear is named Aput. _Snow_. She wishes it would snow more here. She wishes she could convince herself to cry.

She wishes she were home, but she doesn’t even know where home is. Home is snow and cold and her mom and Sokka and Katara. But home is also Suki and Ty Lee and her dad. Yue feels a little bit torn in half, and she thinks she probably has felt torn in half since she first moved here, but now there’s another split. Some part of her, however small it may be, will be on a plane to Japan on Sunday and it will stay with Ty Lee for the rest of their lives. 

Yue thinks, someday, she’s going to go to Japan and visit Ty Lee. She and Suki will go together and they’ll hug Ty Lee so tight that it’ll feel like they were never apart. Ty Lee will show them where she lives and where she goes to school and her favorite restaurants and stores and places to go. Yue and Suki will eat foods they’ve never had before and they’ll tell Ty Lee about everything that’s happened since she moved. Maybe they’ll all do something special and fun like go to a festival or an amusement park.

It’s a far off dream, though. Japan is even farther away than Kugaaruk and Yue knows her dad and Suki’s mom would never allow them to go on their own, at least not until they’re a lot older. And their parents can’t go with them, of course - they’re too busy working.

Monday comes, and the entire school feels emptier. But still, Yue doesn’t cry. She doesn’t do much of anything, drifting through the school day like a ghost. Tuesday and Wednesday pass in the same way.

On Thursday, during independent reading time, Mr. Santos takes Yue and Suki out to talk in the hallway. At first, Yue doesn’t know what’s happening. She’s very careful to not do anything wrong - she really doesn’t like getting in trouble.

But then, Mr. Santos starts to talk about Ty Lee.

Maybe it has to do with the fact that Suki’s mom works at the school, or maybe it doesn’t, but everyone knows Suki, Ty Lee, and Yue were inseparable. Everyone knows they were the friendship that would last. It was a fact of the universe, it was something every student and teacher could see, and it makes sense that Mr. Santos is concerned for Yue and Suki. Of course he knows how close they are were - everyone does.

Yue hears Suki sniffling next to her more than she hears Mr. Santos’ words. She glances over at Suki and sees her eyes are rimmed with red, but still, Yue doesn’t cry. Maybe, she thinks, she didn’t care about Ty Lee as much as Suki does. Maybe she’s a bad friend.

Mr. Santos says something about how everything is going to be okay, about how it’s okay to miss Ty Lee and feel sad about it, but it’s important to not let the sadness overtake you completely. Yue looks at the floor and thinks about Aput, who she’s been sticking in her backpack every morning just in case. She doesn’t want to think about Ty Lee, and she doesn’t want to think about Suki standing a meter away from her on the verge of tears, and she doesn’t want to be sad.

She _does_ want to be sad. But not enough to let it happen. Not enough to dwell on Ty Lee long enough for it to really hit her that she’s lost one of her best friends for good. They were like the three musketeers, and now they’re like that song in _The Lion King_ that says “our trio’s down to two”. Now, they’re like a body with an amputated limb.

Once he’s done talking, Mr. Santos offers them a Kleenex and tells them to take a bathroom break if they need. Yue takes a Kleenex, but she just crumples it up in her hand instead of actually using it and hopes neither Mr. Santos nor Suki will notice. Instead of following Suki to the bathroom, she follows Mr. Santos back inside the classroom and plops down at her desk.

Emptiness chews at her heart, but still, Yue doesn’t cry.

  
  


_fourth grade_

Sokka, Katara, and their parents come to visit in the spring.

The closest airport with flights to and from Kugaaruk is in Chicago, which can either be a two hour drive or a six hour drive, depending on traffic, and the only ones able to pick them up are, of course, Yue and her dad. So on a Thursday in late March, Yue gets to skip school in order to go to Chicago with her dad.

The airport is _huge_. Yue has been here exactly eight times before now, and every time, she’s overwhelmed by the sheer size of it, so when they find Sokka and Katara’s family, Yue isn’t surprised at how wide their eyes are as they look around, trying in vain to take in everything around them.

As soon as Sokka’s gaze lands on Yue, he stops his ogling and breaks into a toothy grin. “Yue!” he shouts, rushing towards her and wrapping her up in a hug. “ _Qanuritpit?_ There’s so much here! Is everywhere like this? I can’t wait to see everything!”

“Hi, Yue,” Katara pipes up from behind her brother. She waves timidly.

The three of them talk and laugh, and Yue points out her favorite parts of the airport. She answers Sokka and Katara’s questions to the best of her ability, but Sokka wants to know about math and architecture and other things that Yue has no knowledge of, so she says a lot of, _“I don’t know”_ s.

The next day - Friday - Yue still has to go to school, but Suki gets to ride home on the bus with her so she can _finally_ meet Sokka and Katara.

“I can’t believe I’m finally getting to meet them!” she exclaims for at least the sixth time today as they climb the stairs up to the apartment. She’s practically vibrating with excitement. Yue doesn’t think she’s talked up her friends _that_ much, but Suki is acting like they’re movie stars.

As soon as Yue opens the door, Sokka and Katara are both shouting her name and dashing over to her and Suki. “ _Ublutkut,_ ” Hakoda greets from across the room. “How was school?”

“It was good!” Yue hangs her backpack up on its hook, and then she introduces Suki to Sokka and Katara. “This is Suki,” she gestures to the other girl. “Suki, that’s Sokka and that’s Katara.”

Katara waves. Sokka grins. “You’re really pretty,” he says. 

Yue frowns at that, instantly wanting to change the subject. She gestures across the room to the adults. “And that’s Sokka and Katara’s parents, Hakoda and Kya.” 

The adults wave politely. “It’s nice to meet you, Suki,” Kya says.

Suki waves back shily.

“Why don’t you have Suki put her stuff down in your room?” Yue’s dad suggests.

“Okay!” Yue leads Suki to her bedroom, even though she knows full well Suki can get there on her own. “Sorry about Sokka,” she says. “He thinks he’s a ‘ladies’ man’.” She scrunches her nose. Back before she moved, people liked to say that she and Sokka were _meant to be together_. Yue liked it - it was a nice thing to think. But she’s pretty sure that’s not actually true, since Sokka is still living in Kugaaruk and she’s living here.

“I don’t mind.” Yue glances over in time to see Suki’s face redden as she drops her bag on Yue’s bedroom floor. “He’s kinda cute.”

Something like fire flares up in Yue’s stomach. She tries to push it down, but she isn’t very successful. But it’s not like _she_ likes Sokka, she reasons. She never _really_ had a crush on him before she moved. She liked the _idea_ of him, the idea of falling in love with your best friend - someone you already know down to the bone, someone you already know you work well with. And she liked the idea of having her relationship approved from before the get-go, so she wouldn’t have to worry about getting anyone’s approval.

But it was never a _real_ crush. And even when Yue’s been back during the summer, she doesn’t _like_ like Sokka. She likes him as a friend.

So why does the idea of Suki having a crush on Sokka make Yue sick to her stomach? Why does she want to tell Suki that Sokka is _not_ cute; he’s an idiot. (And yes, Yue is allowed to call him an idiot because she’s been friends with him since they were born and even though he’s super smart, he’s also an idiot. In the nicest way possible.)

For most of the evening (excluding dinner), the adults leave the kids to their own devices. They sit on the floor in Yue’s bedroom and they talk and play games. Sokka and Katara tell Suki about Kugaaruk - about the stone church and about how small the airport is compared to the one in Chicago and about the stars and the polar twilight. It’s all stuff Suki has heard from Yue, but she latches onto every word Katara and Sokka say. In return, Suki tells Sokka and Katara about her life, with Yue interjecting whenever she has something to add to a story.

Thankfully, Sokka doesn’t say anything else to Suki about how pretty she is and Suki doesn’t treat Sokka like she might have a crush on him, so Yue is successfully able to push her gut reaction to their earlier interaction out of her mind. It’s something she can examine later, when it matters. If it matters.

It probably won’t matter.

Somehow, they get to the point where Suki is painting Katara’s nails. Yue doesn’t remember exactly how it happened - they were talking, and then Katara saw the bottle of nail polish on Yue’s dresser, and now they’re here.

Sokka, of course, is thoroughly uninterested by the whole painting-nails thing, so he takes to walking around Yue’s room and observing everything in it. He stops when he gets to her bed, and he whirls around to face the girls. “You still have it?”

Yue frowns. “Huh?”

“Aput!” Sokka picks the stuffed polar bear up off Yue’s bed. “I didn’t know you still had him. You didn’t bring him home with you last summer.”

“I forgot him,” Yue lies. Truthfully, she had briefly decided that she was too old for stuffed animals and refused to bring him in a harsh moment of misjudgment. She regretted it all summer long. But Sokka doesn’t need to know that.

Sokka pouts at Yue, then he holds Aput up to face him and pouts at the bear. “How could you do such a thing?”

“Done!” Suki announces, saving Yue from having to respond. “It’s quick dry, so it shouldn’t take too long, but still try not to touch anything for a while.”

“Okay, I won’t,” Katara promises. She looks down at her now blue fingernails. “Thank you!”

“You’re welcome!” Suki moves to screw the lid back on the bottle before a mischievous grin crosses her face. “Sokka, you should let me paint your nails too!”

He drops the stuffed animal back on Yue’s bed and crosses his arms. “Absolutely _not_. I’m not a girl!”

“You don’t have to be a girl to get your nails painted,” Suki argues. “My mom says anyone can paint their nails.”

“C’mon, Sokka,” Katara pleads. “It’ll be fun. And Suki’s really good at painting nails.”

“No,” Sokka insists. “I don’t want to.” 

“Please?” 

“No!” 

Katara switches to Inuktitut and asks, _“You’re going to turn down a pretty girl?”_

Sokka’s face flushes, but Yue is too busy swallowing down the sick feeling that suddenly resurfaced in her stomach to pay much attention to him.

“Fine,” Sokka gives in, taking Katara’s spot across from Suki.

Suki smiles victoriously and sets to work. She works diligently, and Yue likes watching her work. But she notices that Sokka _also_ seems to like watching Suki work, his eyes trained on her face. When Suki glances up at him and their eyes meet, they both blush and look away.

Yue stops watching Suki after that and decides to sit next to Katara instead.

_“Are you okay?”_ Katara asks, still speaking Inuktitut. Not that it matters - Sokka and Suki aren’t paying any attention to them.

_“I’m just a little tired.”_ Yue isn’t going to explain whatever is happening in her stomach right now. Maybe she just ate something bad. _Maybe_ she got food poisoning from dinner, and that’s why her stomach keeps hurting. Maybe it has absolutely nothing to do with Suki or Sokka.

Her eyes fall back to the pair, and her stomach twists almost instantly. Her arms feel a little loose and tingly. Suki and Sokka are whispering to each other and laughing at whatever conversation they’re having and Yue _doesn’t_ like it. She can’t name why, exactly, it puts her on edge. But she knows she doesn’t like it.

She won’t say anything, though. Because Suki and Sokka are two of her best friends and she _should_ be happy that they’re getting along. She was happy when Suki was painting Katara’s nails! She should be happy now.

So she’ll swallow whatever it is she’s feeling and she’ll make herself be happy that her friends are becoming friends with each other. That’s exactly what she wanted, isn’t it? That’s why she told Suki about Sokka and Katara and that’s why she told Sokka and Katara about Suki - so hopefully, one day, the four of them would all be able to be friends together.

This is what Yue _wanted_.

So why does she feel so bad?

Later - much later - when Sokka and Katara have crashed due to jet lag still messing with their sleep schedules, Yue and Suki are still sitting awake, legs crossed, across from each other on Yue’s bed.

“Do you really think Sokka’s cute?” Yue whispers. She doesn’t really think she wants to hear Suki’s answer, but she has to know all the same.

Several moments of silence pass before Suki responds, “Yeah,” in a hushed voice. Her eyes aren’t trained on Yue; they’re trained on Sokka, who is sleeping soundly on the floor, his stuffed wolf tucked snugly under his arm. Yue hugs Aput tightly, like that’ll shove whatever is broken inside of her back together. She doesn’t like what she’s feeling and she just wants it to _stop_.

“ _But_ ,” Suki adds, her eyes moving back to Yue, “you’re always going to be my favorite.”

That doesn’t _fix_ things, per se, but it makes Yue feel a lot better. She smiles, unsure if Suki can even see it in the dark. “Thank you.”

  
  


_fifth grade_

The difference between the air outside of the apartment and the air inside is evident as soon as Yue opens the door. Her father is home, and he appears to be waiting for Yue. He’s staring at the phone, discarded on the table instead of placed in the charger where it belongs. His hands are wrapped around a mug, but he’s making no move to drink from it.

If Yue had to pick one word to describe him right now, it would be _somber_. Which, coincidentally, is one of her vocabulary words for the week.

“Yue,” he says in the same tone he’d used before he went on to explain that he and her mom were splitting up, and she would be moving to the United States with him, “I got a call from Bato earlier today.”

Bato is one of the other men who her dad was friends with, before he left everyone behind. But Bato had always been closer to Hakoda and Kya than Yue’s parents, so it’s odd that he would call Yue’s dad. Unless something happened.

Unless something _bad_ happened.

Unless Hakoda and Kya couldn’t call.

Yue can’t believe she was just thinking about vocabulary words a few seconds ago, not when two thousand miles away and completely unreachable, something bad happened.

It’s only early fall. Yue was just back home two months ago. It’s _early fall_ \- the ice hasn’t frozen solid yet. Yue’s heard the horror stories of people falling through. Was it Sokka? Was it Katara? Maybe they’re okay, maybe they’re going to be fine. Maybe they’ll get better, maybe whatever bad thing happened won’t have permanent consequences.

(It’s a false hope. Yue can read her father’s expression clearly.)

It wasn’t ice, though. And it wasn’t Sokka or Katara.

Yue sits down across from her father quietly, softly, trying to take up as little room and make as little noise as possible. Her dad doesn’t let go of his mug, and Yue can now see that it’s almost full, but there isn’t steam coming up from it anymore. She wonders how long he’s just been holding onto it.

And then, as if Yue weren’t worried enough already, her dad starts speaking in Inuktitut - something that has been getting rarer and rarer. _“The doctors think she had a heart attack.”_

_“Who?”_

“Kya.”

Whatever Yue’s dad says after that sounds more like a distant buzz than actual words. Something about arteries and being far from town, words falling out in fragments of English and Inuktitut. _Cardiac. Ilagiit. Disease. Qajaq. Taakti. Airport._

_Funeral._

No.

Yue was just in Kugaaruk two months ago. She was _just there_. Kya was fine. Everyone was _fine_. No one was sick, no one had heart problems, everyone was _FINE_.

It’s not fair. It’s not _fair_!

Yue’s dad tells her they’re going to fly back to Kugaaruk as soon as they can. He’s already started looking for tickets for connecting flights. They’ll probably have to stop in Toronto or Winnipeg and switch to a different flight completely. He’s going to call the school to let them know Yue will be gone.

Yue barely registers his words. She barely registers anything for the rest of the night. She eats dinner at some point, probably. She mostly sits and thinks about how none of this is fair.

The next day, she packs for the trip. She wakes up late, to the sun already streaming in through the window, and her dad tells her she doesn’t have to go to school unless she wants to.

(She doesn’t.)

So she packs her things, and then she takes them out and re-packs them to make sure she didn’t forget anything. Aput sits on her bed during the morning, watching her, until she can’t take it anymore and shoves him underneath her bed so she can’t see him. So he can’t remind her that she’s flying to Kugaaruk tomorrow just to come face-to-face with the cold, harsh, reality that she can’t pretend Kya is actually okay anymore.

Yue switches between reading three different books and writing in her journal and doodling on scrap paper and doing anything that keeps her mind distracted. Anything that stops her from thinking.

And then, an hour and seventeen minutes after the school day has ended, there is a knock on Yue’s bedroom door. It’s too soft to be her dad.

“Yue?” Suki’s voice comes through the door. “I brought some of your homework for you.”

Yue doesn’t move to get the door. She stays seated on her bed, staring at the words on the page of her book but not registering any of them.

The door isn’t locked, though, so Suki pushes it open slowly. The _creak_ slices through Yue’s ears and makes her flinch. She looks over at the other girl, who is holding a stack of school things Yue recognizes as her own. Suki kicks the door shut behind her, sets the schoolwork down on the floor, and then climbs onto Yue’s bed. “My mom offered to have me bring you some of the work you’re going to miss while you’re gone, in case you want to do it on the plane ride.”

Yue looks at the work Suki brought, in its pile on the floor. It might at least offer a distraction, she supposes. “Thank you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Yue says, even though it really isn’t. She knows she can’t be hurting as much as Sokka and Katara are. She knows she doesn’t _deserve_ to be hurting so badly - not when Sokka and Katara lost their mother, not when Hakoda lost his wife, not when Yue doesn’t even live in Kugaaruk anymore - but she still feels broken anyways.

Suki frowns, but she doesn’t try to argue. Instead, she asks, “Do you want a hug?”

Before Suki asked, a hug was the last thing Yue would’ve asked for. But now, she can’t imagine going one moment longer without some sort of human contact. She sets her book down and opens her arms up. Suki is filling the space instantly, wrapping her arms around Yue and hugging her like she’s trying to squeeze the shattered pieces of her heart back together. 

Yue digs her fingers into the fabric of Suki’s shirt, and that’s when the tears start falling. She tries to hold them back, but her efforts are futile. It starts as little hiccups and sniffles, but it isn’t long before she can feel herself shaking, crying, and she imagines she must look pathetic.

(She knows, realistically, that she’s more than allowed to cry. But there’s still that bit of guilt hounding her mind, telling her she doesn’t deserve to be so sad.)

Suki whispers things Yue can’t comprehend right now, but the soothing tone of her voice is comforting.

Once Yue finally manages to stop her tears, she pulls away and wipes her eyes. “Sorry,” she mumbles.

“It’s okay,” Suki promises her. “My mom says it’s good to cry when you’re sad.”

Yue offers her a weak smile, which Suki returns. Then, she stands up and looks around the room until her eyes land on a box of tissues. She walks over to the box and picks it up, but when she turns back to Yue, her eyes catch on something else. Something on the ground?

She hands the box to Yue, then crouches down and reaches under Yue’s bed. When she stands back up, she’s holding Aput. She holds him out towards Yue. “You don’t want to forget him.”

Yue just stares at the stuffed polar bear, clutching the tissue box tightly enough that the thin cardboard is crumpling under her fingers. “I’m not bringing him.”

“Why not?”

Yue looks away, because if she keeps looking at the bear, she knows she’ll start crying again. _Why not?_ “He’ll be too sad.” Just because Yue has to go to Kugaaruk and experience it without Kya doesn’t mean Aput has to. That’s not fair to him.

(None of this is fair.)

Suki returns to her spot on Yue’s bed, sitting cross-legged, with Aput in her lap. Yue looks anywhere besides Suki and the stuffed polar bear. “Oh.”

There’s several moments of silence before Yue says, “Kya made him for me.”

“Oh.” It’s softer this time, barley even a whisper.

“Before Sokka and I were born, she made Aput for me and she made a wolf for Sokka. Before Katara was born, she made her a whale.” Kya made other stuffed animals for other kids too, but Sokka, Katara, and Yue’s were the most special. Kya had said so herself. They were three of a kind, just like Sokka, Katara, and Yue.

Just like Sokka, Katara, and Yue _before Yue_ _left_. Before their trio became separated into the siblings who stayed and the girl who only ever visits in the summer because her dad took her with him when he left. 

(It’s ironic, really. Yue broke a trio to move away from where she was born and Ty Lee broke a trio to move back.)

Previously, when Yue lost someone, they were never really gone. She lost Sokka and Katara, but they were still _there_ . They’ve always been in Kugaaruk and when Yue thinks about them, she can picture them at school or eating dinner or playing games or telling stories and she knows that somewhere out there, they still _are_. It’s the same with Ty Lee. She’s never been to Japan, but she can create a picture in her mind - of Ty Lee cartwheeling in a park, of Ty Lee in a dance class, of Ty Lee bouncing when she walks down the halls at school. She knows that somewhere out there, Ty Lee still _is_. Everything Yue has ever lost has never been gone completely.

But Kya isn’t out there somewhere, still living, even if unreachable by Yue.

She’s gone.

Maybe her spirit will be in the auroras, but when will Yue see them again?

Maybe, if she’s lucky, she’ll see them during this trip. If not, maybe Yue will never see them again. She only ever visits Kugaaruk in the summer, most of which is hours upon hours of sunlight. And she can’t see them from here - it’s too far south.

And maybe her spirit won’t even be there. How is Yue supposed to know? Adults have told her things that hold no truth before. What if the story of the spirits in the lights is one of those things?

(And what if Yue’s doubt is what costs Kya her place in the lights?)

(It doesn’t make any sense, Yue _knows_ that. But her brain is telling her a thousand things and the guilt-ridden ones are the loudest.)

(What if Yue had never left? Would that have butterfly-effect-ed the world so Kya would still be alive?)

“My mom says, when we make things, we put part of our soul into it,” Suki tells Yue, very seriously. “So after the creator dies, part of them lives on in their creation. She said it about artists and authors, but I think it’s true for anything.”

Finally, Yue looks back at Aput.

“As long as you have him with you, it’s like you always have a part of Kya with you.”

Yue wants to reach back out for the polar bear, but she doesn’t. “What if you make so many things that there isn’t enough of your soul left to go where it needs to?” Kya made a lot of stuffed animals. She made carvings, too, and coats and hats and other clothes. What if she gave so much of her soul to her creations that her spirit can’t join the auroras?

“Hmm.” Suki furrows her eyebrows, thinking for several moments. “I don’t think that’s possible,” she eventually decides. “I don’t think we can measure how much of a soul there is. Maybe it’s infinite.”

That could make sense, Yue supposes. It sounds nice, at least.

She takes Aput back from Suki, holding him gingerly. “Thank you.” She looks down into the eyes of her toy. The world is very big, far bigger than Yue ever imagined it could be, but it feels pretty small right now. Like distance has folded in on itself and she could go outside and see Sokka, Katara, and Ty Lee all standing there, with the _Selamiut_ above their heads.

“Suki?”

“Yeah?”

Yue doesn’t know what she wants to say, really. She doesn’t know how to put her feelings into words. Finally, after much deliberation, she decides on, “I’m happy you’re here.”

“Me too.”

**Author's Note:**

>  **translations**  
>  Qanuritpit - How are you?  
> Ublutkut - Good afternoon  
> Ilagiit - Family  
> Qajaq - Kayak  
> Taakti - Doctor
> 
> i did do research for yue's backstory/hometown, but if i got anything wrong or mistakenly included something harmful/racist, please let me know! this goes for all of the other characters too, though since this from yue's pov we don't get as much of their backstories. i'll be glad to edit the story to change anything that needs to be changed
> 
> i got all translation from [here](https://tusaalanga.ca/glossary/english?l=n) but once again: if something's wrong, i'll be glad to fix it!
> 
> you can also find me on [tumblr](https://zukkaclawthorne.tumblr.com/)


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